Second trip to Onslow Quarry
This one’s a little late. I’m stuck here in Calvert Cliffs, MD and the snow is slowly trapping me inside my hotel. I can’t go out and find teeth (or the beach for that matter). I figured that I would use this time to post my last trip to Onslow Quarry. Here it goes…
Well it was time for me to head back to Onslow Quarry to finish out a previous trip that I had to cut short. I called ahead and found out there they were going to be blasting on Friday, so I would use that time to hunt Belgrade Quarry. The first day started out OK. I noticed that there were footprints everywhere. My first thought was “not good for me”. I imagine that we all go thru the same thought process when we see prints where we are looking, like “I wonder if they found anything big? Or Maybe they are just walking around and not really looking for teeth.” I always tell myself that they are just walking around and that they missed the BIG one. This way I don’t lose my focus and pass it up myself… Whatever it takes, right? Anyway…
Day 1 (Wednesday) started out OK, like I mentioned before. I ended up finding some really nice teeth that day. A few busted Rics and one in PERFECT condition. I was crawling on my hands and knees and just happened to notice a little “pebble” sticking out of the dirt. I tugged on it (mainly because I was desperate due to the fact I wasn’t finding much) and out popped a Ric. I couldn’t believe it. It was complete with some cool markings on it. Shortly after that I got up to stretch my legs. I was just walking around and decided to look behind this pile of dirt. On the ground (in a trench) where the water had cut thru some dirt was laying a really nice sized Mako. A smile came to my face. I took out the camera, took a pic, picked up the tooth, put it away, said “thank you God”, and started looking for another one… It slowed down a lot after that. I was reduced to walking in 6” deep mud trying to find little piles of material that no one had looked thru. I found this really odd looking thing covered in grey mud… I could tell it wasn’t what I call phosphate, so I put it in my bag to figure it out later. I finished out the day and went back to the hotel to clean what I had found. I cleaned this “thing” up and still couldn’t figure it out. I’ve never found anything like it. You see, I have a tendency to pick up (and keep) anything that I don’t recognize just incase it is something important… This trip I was going to change my ways and throw it away because I just couldn’t figure out what it was. I placed it in the trash can and then thought that the cleaning lady would start to investigate my room a little closer if she saw this heavy object in the bathroom trash can, so I put it back in my bag to toss back into the pit the next day…
Day 2 (Thursday) was a lot slower than the previous. When I got to the quarry I immediately hit the spots that I realized I missed the previous day. As I’m crawling around doing the Pungo Crawl, I notice a truck pull up, then another one, then another one. SIX people got out and began to pick up everything that wasn’t buried. And in fact 2 of them broke out shovels and started looking for the ones that were buried!! LOL I have to say that they practiced good fossilling manners and stayed clear of the area I was hunting. I could tell that they wanted to come over really bad, but they kept their distance. Thank you. There are not too many things worse than a guy coming over to say “hello” and finding a nice tooth right in front of you. And then putting it in his pocket… OK, on with the story… I ended up talking to one of the guys and he was telling me about several cool fossils he’s found in the quarry over the years. He started telling me about this Mastodon tooth that he found and how rare it was. I started thinking about the odd black thing that I was going to throw toss back into the pit. I asked him if he’d look at something for me and he said yes. I brought it over to him and he said that is exactly what it was… a partial Mastodon tooth. I couldn’t believe it!! The other guy that was digging the hole threatened to bury me in it if I didn’t give it to him. LOL Not too much happened the rest of that day except for that guy that ID’ed that tooth for me showed me what to look for when you dig there… He pulled out TWO really nice Rics right in front of me!! I’ll be back tomorrow with shovel in hand!!
Day 3 (Friday) I started the day out at Belgrade Quarry due to blasting at Onslow. I’m not going to say much on this topic other than make sure you know what material to look in or make sure you bring someone with you who knows what they are doing… Hunting this quarry by yourself on your first time is NOT a good idea. There is a ton of material set aside for us to look thru, but you have to know where to start or you will waste precious time. Enough said… I didn’t find much so I headed back to Onslow after the blasting to meet up with MikeDOTB. He was working that morning and took off so we could find some more cool stuff. Today was going to be a digging day!! We both brought shovels and began to dig and look for the stuff this guy told me about. We did pretty good… we pulled out a few nice teeth. All of it seemed to be reworked megs, makos, great whites, etc. For some reason the teeth he pulled out the day before was not reworked and we were digging in the same spot… hmmmm Anyway, we had a lot of fun digging an literally watching the temperature fall… Time to pack up and head to the house.
OH… you may notice something… Daryl inspired me to step up my photography a little, so I played around with photoshop. You will see a ground shot of the tooth and inside that picture you will see the complete tooth all cleaned up.
Good Times!